elegy
by turkeyish
Summary: Nobody ever knows the entire story. A Narnia/HP crossover written for the Crossover Exchange.


**elegy**

 **I.**

The memory of magic lingers in some places still. Not the magic that unfurls vicious fingers of ice or even the overwhelming magic that breathes sentience into beasts. This is the memory of a magic that transfigures, charms, concocts.

This is the magic that is dying in this part of this world.

...

Lucy cannot help but giggle. She is known in all the lands as the Valiant, yet the tip of the feather brushes against her nose, and the Valiant cannot help but giggle like the schoolgirl she once was, in another life and in another world that she barely remembers now.

Lucy asks to see the length of birch, and the feather drops to the ground.

"Fascinating," Lucy murmurs as she turns the branch over in her hands. The birch wood has been whittled down to the size of a large quill. She swishes and flicks and points it at the feather, but nothing happens this time.

The youth standing before her blushes, mumbles something about not everyone possessing the ability.

But yes, he answers when Lucy asks, he does know of others like him.

...

Queen Lucy travels to Archenland, visits homes, speaks to children.

Some levitate small objects. Others give their cups tiny furry legs. Most have to shut their eyes tight and furrow their brows in deep concentration for many minutes before anything even twitches.

Only one has anything in his hands at all, and when Lucy asks him why the birch, he shrugs, says "it feels better to have something to channel it through."

Lucy makes note of this in her journal.

...

The Archenland parents tell Lucy of pretty tricks performed in market squares and country fairs of old, of coins disappearing and then reappearing, astonishing juggling feats, men holding their breaths for inordinate periods of time. But what was once performed in front of an audience for coin has somehow shifted over the years into something that makes itself known on a random day with no prior announcement, to the utter surprise of the child and his family.

The Archenland parents are worried, Lucy learns. Magic in this world is not a new thing. The magic that gives speech to animals is accepted without thought. The magic that once laid waste to Narnia has been overthrown. But the magic that comes in small bursts to float objects is an unknown thing, a rare thing. What if it puts the children in danger, they ask Lucy.

Queen Lucy promises to help them all, and takes her leave with praises for "the Valiant, the Brave" being proffered.

...

 **II.**

Once upon a time, time itself was not the time anyone knows now. It is not until her later years that she begins to settle down.

...

Peter hears Lucy's news with great interest. He laughs when she tells him of her finding the first boy by coming across him during her daily ride in the woods between Narnia and Archenland, and spying him gathering wood for kindling by sitting against a tree and lazily floating pieces over to himself. Peter is the Magnificent, but he was also once, after all, a boy who knew something of lazy days.

But Peter sobers when Lucy tells him of the parents' concern, the children's awe mingling with fear, her own uncertainty.

"Don't worry, Lu," Peter says to his sister, repeating those old familiar words that never fail to comfort her because they always deliver on their promise, "I'll figure something out."

...

Peter decides on a way to make the children feel safe while actually keeping them safe. A way to nurture their abilities and protect them from repeating _her_ history.

"A school," Peter announces one day as they break their fast.

A school someplace isolated and secure, until they determine exactly what this magic is and in what direction it's headed. A school far from any prying or suspicious eyes, where the children will be able to grow into their abilities without restraint, yet with careful guidance.

There is some hesitation over who exactly will provide that guidance. But Lucy has promised, and the Pevensies have never avoided a challenge before, and so the decision is made.

...

Peter pores over maps for hours, makes notes, considers options.

The Western Wild, he determines, is to be their destination.

...

Lucy envisions a smallish building of a few rooms for the school, and that vision is realized easily enough. But Peter soon tells her that it is only temporary and hands her a sheaf of parchment detailing a much more ambitious idea.

"We're going to be teaching these children," Peter says, and "we also need to provide them with places to sleep, eat, and play."

"Don't forget the dueling," Edmund tosses over his shoulder as he passes his siblings.

"Yes," Peter agrees with a grin, "everyone ought to know how to wield a sword at least a little."

After all, Narnia says of their high king, Peter the Ruler is rivaled only by his brother Edmund in swordplay.

...

 **III.**

There is no one in the world now who remembers a time when the boundaries between worlds were merely spaces that shimmered faintly in the light like a mirage in the desert and were penetrated just as easily.

No one now knows what it is like to pass from one world into the next without sensation.

...

Peter asks Susan what she thinks of the place he has chosen for the school. She smiles and tells him it is perfect. She thinks to herself fleetingly that it reminds her of the Highlands.

And then she wonders where that thought came from, because there is no such place in her world.

...

Susan the Gentle is known in all the lands for her great beauty. Yet those who are close to her also know of her sharp eye and unerring aim with a bow and arrow. Her students, especially, come to know her for her keen intellect.

Susan is strict and she is intimidating, but some would say that she is the best teacher. Lucy is the sister the children go to for the drying of their tears. Susan is the sister who demands extra work and creative answers.

...

It is Susan who leads experiments in the making of wands, Susan who realizes just how important they can be in the first place for every student.

"They're children," Susan says, and "it's difficult for them to control their moods, much less any spontaneous bursts of magic."

Edmund looks up from his books to watch his sister methodically twine a length of unicorn hair around a strip of yew that one of the students has whittled down.

Susan laughs when Edmund asks her if she wants any of his hair as well.

"It's neither long enough nor magical enough," Susan teases her brother, and laughs again as she ducks the ball of parchment that he chucks at her.

...

Susan is known within and without Narnia as the Fair. Yet her students have another name for the queen. To a perceptive very few, Queen Susan is the Thinker.

...

 **IV.**

Legends and lore are tricksters, shape shifters, twisters, turners.

Very little today and in this world began in the form as we think we know it.

...

Edmund the Just is the tall, the slim, the dark-haired and darker-eyed boy king. He reads people like he reads his books, easily and swiftly and completely.

If Susan is the Thinker, Edmund is the Mind. He stores information in his vast memory in the same way that he hides blades on his person. Quietly, nimbly, dangerously.

Nothing escapes Edmund's sharp gaze or shrewd intellect.

...

Peter and Edmund teach any of the children who ask how to wield a sword.

It is Edmund who realizes that dueling might not be confined to only the blade.

...

Peter watches from a doorway one day as Edmund speaks to a group of students about clearing the mind of any and all distraction, of probing the other person for their deepest secrets to gain the advantage without having to blink an eye, of maneuvering defensively and then offensively while wielding a wand.

Peter grins when the students leave the room. "And here I thought you'd given up the role of spymaster so you could retire quietly in the countryside, old man."

Edmund's lips twitch in a faint smirk.

His enemies call him the Snake. Cunning, powerful, elusive.

King Edmund never lies about what he is, and those loyal to him love him for it.

...

Years pass, people come and go, things change.

Homes fall desolate for a while and then are rediscovered much later by individuals seeking remoteness and safety in a vague echo of history.

And if one finds an ancient journal falling apart in an even older trunk tucked away in a large and dusty room, makes out enough of the writing to glean the story of the place, fills in the blanks to spin a tale worth telling over and over and over again, well –

...

The memory of a world long gone no longer lingers in any place. Not the world everyone knows today or any of the worlds anyone thinks they know. This is the memory of a world that transfigured, charmed, concocted, all without anyone knowing.

This is the world that has faded.

...

 _Fin._


End file.
